MR. CHAPMAN'S PUBLICATIONS. THE CATHOLIC SERIES-continued. THE POPULAR WORKS OF JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE. Cloth, 128. per volume. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 1. MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR, by WILLIAM SMITH. 2. THE VOCATION OF THE SCHOLAR. 3. THE NATURE OF THE SCHOLAR. 4. THE VOCATION OF MAN. CONTENTS OF VOL. II. 1. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PRESENT AGE. 2. THE WAY TOWARDS THE BLESSED LIFE; OR, THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION. CHARACTERISTICS OF MEN OF GENIUS; A Series of Biographical, Historical, and Critical Essays, selected by permission, chiefly from the North American Review, with Preface, by JOHN CHAPMAN. 2 vols., cloth, 88. CONTENTS. GREGORY VII., LOYOLA, PASCAL. Dante, PetrarcH, SHELLEY, BYRON, GOETHE, WORDSWORTH, MILTON, MICHAEL ANGELO, Canova. MACHIAVELLI, LOUIS IX., PETER THE GREAT. "Essays of very high order, which from their novelty, and their intrinsic value, we are sure will receive from the British public a reception commensurate with their merits..... They are Essays which would do honour to the literature of any country."-Westminster Review. and are less solicitous to construct a theory of their own, and thereby run the risk of discolouring the facts of history, than to take a calm and dispassionate survey of events and opinions." Morning Chronicle. "Essays well worthy of an European Life."-Christian Reformer. Essays of great power and interest.. In freedom of opinion, and occasionally in "The collection before us is able and catholicity of judgment, the writers are readable, with a good deal of interest in its superior to our own periodical essayists; subjects. They exhibit force, justness of but we think there is less brilliancy and remark, an acquaintance with their subject, point in them; though on that very account beyond the mere book reviewed; much there is, perhaps, greater impartiality and clear-headed pains-taking in the paper justice."Douglas Jerrold's Magazine. itself, where the treatment requires pains, "Rich as we are in this delightful de-a larger and more liberal spirit than is partment of literature, we gladly accept often found in transatlantic literature, and another contribution to critical biography. sometimes a marked and forcible style."-. The American writers keep more Spectator. closely to their text than our own reviewers, MR. CHAPMAN'S PUBLICATIONS. www THE CATHOLIC SERIES-continued. THE LIFE OF JEAN PAUL FR. RICHTER. Compiled from various sources. Together with his Autobiography, translated from the German. Second Edition. Illustrated with a Portrait engraved on Steel. Cloth, 78. 6d. that humour of which Rabelais is the great "The autobiography of Richter, which women, of the most refined and exalted extends only to his twelfth year, is one of natures, and of princely rank. It is full the most interesting studies of a true poet's of passages so attractive and valuable that childhood ever given to the world."-it is difficult to make a selection as exLowe's Edinburgh Magazine. amples of its character."-Inquirer. "Richter has an intellect vehement, "The work is a useful exhibition of a rugged, irresistible, crushing in pieces the great and amiable man, who, possessed of hardest problems; piercing into the most the kindliest feelings, and the most brilhidden combinations of things, and grasp-liant fantasy, turned to a high purpose ing the most distant; an imagination vague, sombre, splendid, or appalling, brooding over the abysses of being, wandering through infinitude, and summoning before us, in its dim religious light, shapes of brilliancy, solemnity, or terror; a fancy of exuberance literally unexampled, for it pours its treasures with a lavishness which knows no limit, hanging, like the sun, a jewel on every grass-blade, and sowing the earth at large with orient pearls. But deeper than all these lies humour, the ruling quality of Richter as it were the central fire that pervades and vivifies his whole being. He is a humourist from his inmost soul; he thinks as a humourist; he imagines, acts, feels as a humourist: sport is the element in which his nature lives and works." Thomas Carlyle. "With such a writer it is no common treat to be intimately acquainted. In the proximity of great and virtuous minds we imbibe a portion of their nature-feel, as mesmerists say, a healthful contagion, are braced with the same spirit of faith, hope, and patient endurance-are furnished with data for clearing up and working out the intricate problem of life, and are inspired, like them, with the prospect of immortality. No reader of sensibility can rise from the perusal of these volumes without becoming both wiser and better."-Atlas. "Richter is exhibited in a most amiable light in this biography industrious, frugal, benevolent, with a child-like simplicity of character, and a heart overflowing with the purest love. His letters to his wife are beautiful memorials of true affection, and the way in which he perpetually speaks of his children shows that he was the most attached and indulgent of fathers. Whoever came within the sphere of his companionship appears to have contracted an affection for him that death only dissolved and while his name was resounding through Germany, he remained as meek and humble as if he had still been an unknown adventurer on Parnassus." The Apprentice. "The life of Jean Paul is a charming piece of biography which draws and rivets the attention. The affections of the reader are fixed on the hero with an intensity rarely bestowed on an historical character. It is impossible to read this biography "Apart from the interest of the work, as without a conviction of its integrity and the life of Jean Paul, the reader learns truth; and though Richter's style is more something of German life and German difficult of translation than that of any thought, and is introduced to Weimar other German, yet we feel that his golden during its most distinguished period- thoughts have reached us pure from the when Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and Wie- mine, to which he has given that impress land, the great fixed stars of Germany, in of genius which makes them current in all conjunction with Jean Paul, were there, countries."-Christian Reformer. surrounded by beautiful and admiring THE RATIONALE OF RELIGIOUS INQUIRY; or, the Question stated, of Reason, the Bible, and the Church. By JAMES MR. CHAPMAN'S PUBLICATIONS. THE CATHOLIC SERIES-continued. THE PHILOSOPHY OF ART. An Oration on the Relation of the Plastic Arts to Nature. Translated from the German of F. W. J. VON SCHELLING, by A. JOHNSON. 18. paper cover; 1s. 6d. cloth. "This excellent oration is an application | work of art the heterogeneous is excluded, to art of Schelling's general philosophic and a unity is attained not to be found principles. Schelling takes the bold course, elsewhere. Schelling, in his oration, chiefly, and declares that what is ordinarily called not exclusively, regards the arts of painting nature is not the summit of perfection, but and sculpture; but his remarks will equally is only the inadequate manifestation of a apply to others, such as poetry and music. high idea, which it is the office of man to This oration of Schelling's deserves an penetrate. The true astronomer is not he extensive perusal. The translation, with who notes down laws and causes which the exception of a few trifling inaccuracies, were never revealed to sensuous organs, is admirably done by Mr. Johnson; and and which are often opposed to the prima we know of no work in our language facie influences of sensuous observers. better suited to give a notion of the turn The true artist is not he who merely imi- which German philosophy took after it tates an isolated object in nature, but he abandoned the subjectivity of Kant and who can penetrate into the unseen essence Fichte. The notion will, of course, be a that lurks behind the visible crust, and faint one; but it is something to know the afterwards reproduce it in a visible form. latitude and longitude of a mental posiIn the surrounding world means and ends tion."-Examiner. are clashed and jarred together; in the ESSAYS. BY R. W. EMERSON. (Second Series.) With a Notice by THOMAS CARLYLE. 3s. paper cover; 38. 6d. cloth. "The difficulty we find in giving a proper notice of this volume arises from the pervadingness of its excellence, and the compression of its matter. With more learning than Hazlitt, more perspicuity than Carlyle, more vigour and depth of thought than Addison, and with as much originality and fascination as any of them, this volume is a brilliant addition to the Table Talk of intellectual men, be they who or where they may." "-Prospective Review. "Mr. Emerson is not a common man, and everything he writes contains suggestive matter of much thought and earnestness."-Examiner. "That Emerson is, in a high degree, possessed of the faculty and vision of the seer, none can doubt who will earnestly and with a kind and reverential spirit peruse these nine Essays. He deals only with the true and the eternal. His piercing gaze at once shoots swiftly, surely, through the outward and the superficial, to the inmost causes and workings. Any one can tell the time who looks on the face of the clock, but he loves to lay bare the machinery and show its moving principle. His words and his thoughts are a fresh spring, that invigorates the soul that is steeped therein. His mind is ever dealing with the eternal; and those who only live to exercise their lower intellectual faculties, and desire only new facts and new images, and those who have not a feeling or an interest in the great question of mind and matter, eternity and nature, will disregard him as unintelligible and uninteresting, as they do Bacon and Plato, and, indeed, philosophy itself."Douglas Jerrold's Magazine. "Beyond social science, because beyond and outside social existence, there lies the science of self, the development of man in his individual existence, within himself and for himself. Of this latter science, which may perhaps be called the philosophy of individuality, Mr. Emerson is an able apostle and interpreter."--League. "As regards the particular volume of EMERSON before us, we think it an improvement upon the first series of essays. The subjects are better chosen. They come home more to the experience of the mass of mankind, and are consequently more interesting. Their treatment also indicates an artistic improvement in the composition."-Spectator. "All lovers of literature will read Mr. Emerson's new volume, as the most of them have read his former one; and if correct taste, and sober views of life, and such ideas on the higher subjects of thought as we have been accustomed to account as truths, are sometimes outraged, we at least meet at every step with originality, imagination, and eloquence."-Inquirer. MR. CHAPMAN'S PUBLICATIONS. THE CATHOLIC SERIES-continued. SERMONS OF CONSOLATION. By F. W. P. Greenwood, D.D. 3s. cloth. "This a really delightful volume, which meet with a grateful reception from all who we would gladly see producing its purify-seek instruction on the topics most interesting and elevating influences in all our ing to a thoughtful mind. There are families."-Inquirer. twenty-seven sermons in the volume.""This beautiful volume we are sure will Christian Examiner. SELF-CULTURE. By WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. 6d. paper cover; 1s. cloth. THE CRITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS OF THEODORE PARKER. Cloth, 6s. "It will be seen from these extracts that Theodore Parker is a writer of considerable power and freshness, if not originality. Of the school of Carlyle, or rather taking the same German originals for his models, Parker has a more sober style and a less theatric taste. His composition wants the grotesque animation and richness of CarÏyle, but it is vivid, strong, and frequently picturesque, with a tenderness that the great Scotchman does not possess."-Spectator. "Viewing him as a most useful, as well as highly-gifted man, we cordially welcome the appearance of an English reprint of some of his best productions. The Miscellaneous' Pieces are characterised by the peculiar eloquence which is without a parallel in the works of English writers. His language is almost entirely figurative: the glories of nature are pressed into his service, and convey his most careless thought. This is the principal charm of his writings; his eloquence is altogether unlike that of the English orator or essayist; it partakes of the grandeur of the forests in his native land; and we seem, when listening to his speech, to hear the music of the woods, the rustling of the pine-trees, and the ringing of the woodman's axe. In this respect he resembles Emerson; but, unlike that celebrated man, he never discourses audibly with himself, in a language unknown to the world-he is never obscure; the stream, though deep, reveals the glittering gems which cluster so thickly on its bed."-Inquirer. Characterization of the Catholic Series BY THE PRESS. "The various works composing the Catholic Series,' should be known to all lovers of literature, and may be recommended as calculated to instruct and elevate by the proposition of noble aims and the inculcation of noble truths, furnishing reflective and cultivated minds with more wholesome food than the nauseous trash which the popular tale-writers of the day set before their readers.”—Morning Chronicle. "Too much encouragement cannot be given to enterprising publications like the present. They are directly in the teeth of popular prejudice and popular trash. They are addressed to the higher class of readers—those who think as well as read. They are works at which ordinary publishers shudder as unsaleable,' but which are really capable of finding a very large public."-Foreign Quarterly. "The works already published embrace a great variety of subjects, and display a great variety of talent. They are not exclusively, nor even chiefly, religious; and they are from the pens of German, French, American, as well as English authors. Without reference to the opinion which they contain, we may safely say that they are generally such as all men of free and philosophical minds would do well to know and ponder."-Nonconformist. "This series deserves attention, both for what it has already given, and for what it promises."-Tait's Magazine. "A series not intended to represent or maintain a form of opinion, but to bring together some of the works which do honour to our common nature, by the genius they display, or by their ennobling tendency and lofty aspirations."-Inquirer. "It is highly creditable to Mr. Chapman to find his name in connexion with so much well-directed enterprise in the cause of German literature and philosophy. He is the first publisher who seems to have proposed to himself the worthy object of introducing the English reader to the philosophic mind of Germany, uninfluenced by the tradesman's distrust of the marketable nature of the article. It is a very praiseworthy ambition; and we trust the public will justify his confidence. Nothing could be more unworthy than the attempt to discourage, and indeed punish, such unselfish enterprise, by attaching a bad reputation for orthodoxy to everything connected with German philosophy and theology. This is especially unworthy in the 'student,' or the 'scholar,' to borrow Fichte's names, who should disdain to set themselves the task of exciting, by their friction, a popular prejudice and clamour on matters on which the populace are no competent judges, and have, indeed, no judgment of their own,--and who should feel, as men themselves devoted to thought, that what makes a good book is not that it should gain its reader's acquiescence, but that it should multiply his mental experience; that it should acquaint him with the ideas which philosophers and scholars, reared by a training different from their own, have laboriously reached and devoutly entertain; that, in a word, it should enlarge his materials and his sympathies as a man and a thinker."-Prospective Review. 66 A series of serious and manly publications.”—Economist. |